Dahlkemper speaks about health-care bill

Tuesday

U.S. Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper said her vote for landmark health-care reform came with safeguards that would maintain the law that bans federal funds from paying for abortions.

But anti-abortion advocates aren't buying the argument, and two Republican congressional candidates in her district criticized her vote for this reform measure.

Now Dahlkemper will find out how that vote will affect her chances for re-election.

Dahlkemper, of Erie, D-3rd Dist., was asked during a conference call with reporters Monday if she will be targeted as a freshman lawmaker seeking a second term.

"As a freshman, I'd be targeted no matter what I do down here. I took a seat that had been Republican for 32 years,'' she said.

But Dahlkemper said she voted for the health-care bill, which will extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans, for several reasons. Among the reasons: She said it would lower the cost of health care, reduce the federal deficit and continue to prevent federal funding of abortion.

Among other provisions, it also will stop insurance companies from refusing coverage for pre-existing conditions and allow children to stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26.

Dahlkemper was on the fence, along with a bloc of other anti-abortion Democrats, until they got President Barack Obama's executive order affirming current law that prohibits federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or danger to a mother's life.

Dahlkemper said she spoke to Obama three times and told him that she and the other lawmakers needed "absolute assurance that federal funds will not be going for abortion.''

The Democrats didn't get to add stricter anti-abortion language contained in the original House bill approved in November, but they were satisfied with the executive order.

The anti-abortion movement was far from satisfied.

"I'm very upset the way it turned out with Kathy Dahlkemper,'' said Tim Broderick, president of People for Life, an Erie-based nonprofit.

"Action speaks louder than words. Though self-described as a pro-life Democrat, she voted to give us the biggest setback to the pro-life cause since Roe versus Wade,'' Broderick said, referring to the Supreme Court ruling.

"Even more surprising than her vote is her buying into this fanciful claim about the executive order,'' he said.

"I don't know what's worse. Using the executive order as an excuse to vote for the expansion of abortion funding, or honestly being convinced that a president would have the authority to unilaterally (nullify) standing federal law by an executive order,'' he said, referring to the reform bill.

But Dahlkemper said that while she preferred the original House language over the language in the Senate bill that the House approved Sunday night, the executive order has "the full force of the law'' and would stand up in court.

Robert Speel, associate professor of political science at Penn State Behrend, said he doesn't think most anti-abortion Democratic voters will see Dahlkemper's vote as betraying the anti-abortion cause. "And many of the Republican voters would not have voted for her in November anyway,'' he said.

He believes Dahlkemper will get swept up in whatever trend awaits Democrats and Republicans in the fall.

"In eight months, new issues are going to arise among the electorate, and some of those, including the economy, may be fresher in voters' minds by November,'' he said.

But two potential challengers to Dahlkemper in the Nov. 2 election claimed that the lawmaker bowed to pressure from top Democrats.

Republican candidate Mike Kelly, of Butler, criticized her for supporting what he said in a statement was the "massive, government-run health-care bill being shoved down the throats of the American people by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama.''

GOP candidate Paul Huber, of Meadville, said in a statement that while voters in the district counted on Dahlkemper "to stand up for them, Kathy Dahlkemper folded under pressure and sided instead with Nancy Pelosi and her liberal leaders in Congress.''

Marie Francis, Dahlkemper's spokeswoman, said that House leadership did not pressure Dahlkemper into voting for the bill, and members of the "pro-life Democratic caucus'' told Obama what they needed on the abortion issue to get their vote.

Back in Erie, three people outside Dahlkemper's Erie office on a rainy day thanked her for supporting the bill.

Among them were Jane Kirk, 72, of Erie, who said she is opposed to abortion and "very much for quality of health care.''

"The enormous amount of poor people (without health care), we cannot stand by and not help them,'' she said.

JOHN GUERRIERO can be reached at 870-1690 or by e-mail.

Read the Campaign '10 blog at GoErie.com/blogs/campaign10 and post comments.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.